


Losses on a mountainside

by kapakoscheisigma



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Loss, Love, M/M, Mocha, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-12
Updated: 2012-06-12
Packaged: 2017-11-07 13:44:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/431830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kapakoscheisigma/pseuds/kapakoscheisigma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor takes Jamie for a treat at Starbucks to help him get over the departure of Victoria. They are followed by a lonely man...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Losses on a mountainside

It could have been home. The TARDIS had brought them to a side of a mountain in the driving rain and howling wind. He said so.

“No Jamie, this is Wales, and certainly not your century.”

“How d’ye ken?”

“Look.” The Doctor pointed down the wooded path to a tarmac road and sign written in two languages, English and a string of unconnected consonants, as far as Jamie could tell. In English it said ‘Car Park. No over night camping.’

“Are we still in the twentieth century then?” Jamie thought of all that had happened, the parting of the ways. He missed her constant chatter, her questions, her silly, bright teasing and her determination to be brave. He even missed her screams when she failed.

The Doctor licked his finger and held it to the wind and rain and then sucked it. Jamie was rather distracted by the finger sucking.

“Very late twentieth century, but perhaps more likely early twenty-first. Shall we follow the road?”

Jamie followed the Doctor as they tramped down the small tarmac lane, the Doctor playing an irritating wee tune on his recorder as they went. They passed a sleek black beastie of a vehicle, a handsome man appeared to be asleep at the wheel control.

They came to a junction with a wider roadway. The Doctor stopped at a concrete post with a thick plastic flag atop with a picture of a wee red dragon and a large, rectangular vehicle with many windows.

Soon a real long, red beastie arrived with the name of an unpronounceable settlement – Betws-y-Coed – on the front in electronic writing and many pictures and writings at the side under the windows. Jamie had seen such in many places in his future in his travels with the Doctor: adverts. Money and power, all through humanity, those with money and power making those with neither part with what they had. Not only in his future, but in human past too; he’d seen adverts in Latin all around the arena at the games they had stumbled upon once. Polly had grown so distressed, drawing attention to themselves, finding out Polly was not supposed to be where they were, but at the top of the place, and her dress had been considered too immodest so they had had to make a hasty retreat back to the TARDIS. The Doctor had been upset, he had so wanted to stay in a Roman town and experience it all. Ben and Polly had put their collective foot down. The Doctor had pointed Jamie to all things Greek and Roman in the library – his first real test of his new reading skills. It had given him plenty of useful information, too.

And true, Polly had been fond of those wee, tiny dresses, so scanty clad she could be considered immodest. Not like poor wee Victoria. He hoped she was all right.

Somehow they boarded the bus without paying and they were on their way. Jamie wished the Doctor wouldn’t do that! But he had to admit, the Welsh mountains looked much prettier from inside the warm, dry bus. Jamie noticed the sleek black car following the bus. The handsome man had awoken then.

 

**

 

They got out at a small town. Jamie followed the Doctor up the steep high street.

“What did I say?” the Doctor said proudly, gesturing at the shop signs that meant nothing to Jamie, but they were all written in two languages. “Wales! And most definitely early twenty-first century. Ah! Here we are.” The Doctor clapped his hands with glee and beamed up at a white sign bearing the image of a longhaired lass made of green waving lines. Perhaps she was a local pagan goddess? Jamie had observed enough to know that Christianity didn’t last and who knew with the Welsh anyway? But no, not a temple, as the Doctor exclaimed, “What a treat for you Jamie!” and went inside. Jamie followed, bemused, and slightly concerned, as all the way up the street the man from the black beastie had followed them, his long, great coat from another time entirely billowing out behind him in the wind.

 

**

The Doctor beamed as he placed the huge mug of frothy brown liquid covered in whipped cream and pink and white cubes of sweetmeats in front of him.

“Double shot mocha with extra peppermint syrup shot, whipped cream and marshmallows. Yum!” said the Doctor happily.

The Doctor put down his own equally huge and creamy drink down before sitting opposite Jamie and beaming at him. “A little holiday Jamie, exactly what we need! No one shooting at us or making threats.” He poked the cream with his finger and licked it, smiling around his finger mischievously. Jamie wasn’t paying attention but staring at his huge confection. Was it Christmas?

“Do I eat it or drink it?” he asked, uncertain.

“Well, a bit of both Jamie. We get these little sticks to eat with.” The Doctor waved a thin wee fragile stick in the air.

“Aye. Fat lot of good those are.” But Jamie stabbed a pink cube and tried it, smiling around it. His smile died as he saw the man sat at the back, looking at them over the rim of his cup.

“Are you all right Jamie?”

Jamie didn’t want to alarm the Doctor unnecessarily. It might all be coincidence. After all, after falling asleep in his car, the man just might want a coffee.

“Aye. Well. I miss Victoria. Do you think she’s all right with the Harrises?”

“They can give her the security she craves, Jamie. She was only temporary, you know? We had no choice but to take her in after the Daleks...”

“Killed her father, aye, I know. Poor wee thing. I miss her Doctor, and I worry...”

“Oh Jamie. I shouldn’t worry, she’ll be fine, I feel certain.”

“I miss her,” Jamie said again.

“Of course. As do I. Each time it hurts but you – they! – all leave, you know? Another one flies the coop.”

“As in chicken you mean? Well she was, wasn’t she? Our wee little chook.”

“And they grow up and leave.”

“Well, don’t include me, ye daft wee man. I’m here for good, ‘til death do us part, don’t ye forget it Doctor!”

“Oh Jamie!” the Doctor picked up Jamie’s hand in both of his and caressed it with his thumbs. He looked down, watching his fingers entwine with those of his young human lover. Over his head Jamie watched the man, who had been gazing at the Doctor for some while with naked emotion, desire and something more, longing? Loss? Jamie was determined to do something when the man got up to leave. He headed towards him. Jamie withdrew his hands, clenching fists. The Doctor looked up, startled.

“Such love comes once a lifetime, over many lifetimes. So brief and it’s gone,” said the man with an accent that was not quite American. “You treasure him Doctor. And you – you look after him,” he said to Jamie, staring right at him, “He’s the best.”

“I know,” replied Jamie, confused.

The Doctor’s head snapped up, eyes burning with curiosity as he looked at the man, wondering. The man saluted and then walked quickly to the exit.

“Who was that Doctor?”

“I haven’t the foggiest Jamie,” replied the Doctor, worried. But he squeezed Jamie’s hands, making the fists uncurl, determined to no more to dwell on Jamie’s mayfly existence to his walk through eternity. He had him now, he would indeed treasure every joyful, every intimate, every adventurous and indeed every frightening moment they had together.

“Try your mocha,” he said.

Jamie did so. Coffee and chocolate and sweet mint exploded on his tongue through a wall of thick cream. He grinned at the Doctor, who, to the shock of the small Welsh town cliental, leaned across the table to kiss away the cream and milk foam moustache.

 

**

 

Outside the man wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Oh Ianto,” he whispered sadly.

Captain Jack Harkness had been determined to have each incarnation previous to his own without ever revealing his identity and causing any temporal paradox, or indeed embarrassment. Pulling the cute tall, blond persona away from that sulky redhead had been easy. But not this one. No. Never. He’d never known the Doctor had experienced such true, pure love until today.

And nor had he realised the same for himself, neither.

“Ianto!” he cried out, the pain of loss welling up fresh inside. “Ianto!” he cried to the mountains. “Oh Ianto!”

But Ianto was cold and dead and never coming back, killed by his own arrogance that he could be the Doctor.

**Author's Note:**

> Why RTD? Why oh why RTD? Why kill Ianto so pointlessly?
> 
> Okay, inspired by standing by my man's grave on a Welsh mountainside so be nice to me!


End file.
